How to Let Go and Let God in a Relationship
(Especially When You’re Tired of Carrying It All)
If you’re a woman over 50, chances are you’re not asking how to fix your relationship anymore.
You’re asking how to stop carrying it.
The emotional weight.
The constant managing.
The responsibility for how everyone else feels.
Learning how to let go and let God in a relationship (i.e., marriage, parental, friendship) doesn’t usually come from a crisis. It comes from exhaustion — the quiet realization that you’ve been holding more than was ever meant to be yours.
And in midlife, something shifts. You don’t want drama. You don’t want escape. You want relief. Relief from trying to fix what only God can handle—your spouse’s struggles, your children’s paths, and relationships that have quietly grown heavy over the years.
Letting go and letting God isn’t about giving up on love.
It’s about decluttering what drains you — and trusting God with what you cannot control.
Related Reading
If this resonates, you may also enjoy reading 21 Things to Let Go of in Your 50s Right Now, where I explore how midlife women begin to let go — physically, emotionally, and relationally.
What Does “Let Go and Let God” Mean in a Relationship?
One of the most common misunderstandings about faith and relationships is this idea that letting go means disengaging, detaching, or walking away.
It doesn’t.
Letting go and letting God means releasing control over things that were never yours to manage in the first place, including:
- Another person’s emotions
- Another person’s growth or lack of growth
- Another person’s reactions, moods, or choices
It does not mean:
- Ignoring real issues
- Silencing your needs
- Pretending everything is fine
For many women in midlife, letting go is less about leaving — and more about no longer over-functioning.
It’s choosing to stop carrying what God never asked you to carry in the first place. As Psalm 55:22 reminds us, “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you.”
Letting Go in a Relationship Looks Different After 50
When you’re younger, love often feels like effort. In midlife, love starts to feel like weight.
By the time you reach your 50s, you’ve likely spent decades:
Allowing silence instead of filling it
In earlier seasons of life, silence can almost feel like failure—something to fix or smooth over. In midlife, silence becomes information. It gives space for truth to surface, for emotions to settle, and for God to work without your constant narration. Not every pause needs your voice. Some need your trust. And like a good friend always says, “Just, let it lie”.
Letting someone experience the consequences of their choices
This may be one of the hardest shifts for women who have spent decades protecting, rescuing, and softening life for others. Letting go doesn’t mean withholding love or detaching; it means releasing responsibility. When you stop natural consequences from occurring, you allow others the dignity of their own growth—and you reclaim energy that was never meant to be spent managing outcomes or other people.
Resisting the urge to explain yourself one more time
By midlife, you’ve likely explained your feelings clearly—many times over. Emotional maturity recognizes when further explanation won’t bring understanding, only exhaustion, and more resentment. Choosing not to re-explain isn’t shutting down; it’s trusting that clarity doesn’t always require a consensus or even agreement.
Choosing peace over being understood
There comes a point when being right, clear, or fully understood no longer feels worth the cost. Peace becomes the priority—not because you don’t care, but because you finally do. This isn’t withdrawal; it’s wisdom. It’s the quiet confidence of knowing you don’t have to defend your boundaries for them to be valid.
At some point, you realize:
I’m not angry or mad…I’m just tired.
This is where letting go in a relationship becomes an act of emotional maturity, not indifference.
This is not emotional withdrawal. It’s emotional clarity on steroids.
Emotional Maturity in Relationships: Carrying Less, Not Caring Less
Here’s where midlife wisdom changes everything.
Emotional maturity in relationships isn’t about being endlessly patient, flexible, or understanding.
It’s about knowing when to stop absorbing what isn’t yours.
Emotionally mature women:
- Stop managing other people’s discomfort
- Stop taking responsibility for emotional outcomes
- Stop believing love requires giving up/forfeiting self
This is why so many women don’t “leave” relationships in midlife — they simply stop over-carrying them.
They let God handle what they can’t fix.
They let go of roles that drain them.
They keep their hearts open — but their backs (and mind…and hearts) unburdened.
That’s not quitting. Again, that’s wisdom.
Trusting God in Relationships When You’re Done Trying So Hard
Trusting God in relationships doesn’t mean passivity, or acquiescing. It means saying:
God, I trust You with what I no longer have the strength to manage.
For many women over 50, this trust comes after years of doing everything right and still feeling depleted.
Trust looks like:
- Letting conversations end unfinished
- Letting silence be silence
- Letting God work where you’ve been working alone
Faith, at this stage of life, becomes quieter — and deeper.
It’s not about fixing people.
It’s about freedom, your freedom.
Letting Go as Emotional Decluttering in Midlife
If you’ve already begun decluttering your home, you may recognize this truth:
The heaviest things in life aren’t physical. They’re emotional.
This is why letting go and letting God is deeply connected to emotional decluttering in midlife. Just as you release objects that no longer serve you, you begin releasing:
- Expectations that drain you
- Patterns that exhaust you
- Responsibilities that were never yours
If this resonates, you may also find relief in exploring how decluttering after 50 isn’t just about stuff — it’s about putting down what you’ve been carrying for years.
Midlife invites a gentler way of living.
A lighter way of loving.
A quieter way of trusting.
Letting God Carry What Drains You
Letting go doesn’t mean you stop loving.
It means you stop carrying.
Let’s review: You stop trying to control outcomes. You stop managing emotions that aren’t yours. You stop believing your worth is measured by how much you hold together.
Learning how to let go and let God in a relationship is not about walking away from love. It’s about walking toward peace.
And in midlife, peace isn’t something you earn. It’s something you finally allow yourself to choose.
Here’s Your Everyday Joy Takeaway
Midlife is not the season for carrying more. It’s the season for putting things down — and trusting God with what remains.
